Social Media Sucks
(05/2024)
We all know that social media kind of sucks. It’s not great for teens and has links to rising anxiety and depression levels. So why is everyone so wrapped up in it? I will give my experience with social media that hopefully resonates with other people. I primarily used instagram, and will therefore focus this post on my usage of instagram, but I’m sure people can relate this to different social media platforms as well.
I first opened an instagram account in the 6th grade when I was only 11 years old! I deleted it shortly thereafter because something about it didn’t feel right. Ironically, I promptly switched over to posting on Facebook because I still felt the need to share photos of my life (and nobody else was really using facebook that much). Alas I returned to instagram the summer before my freshman year of highschool, while at a dance intensive where I was made to believe that I would be severely missing out and jeopardize my possibilities at a career (or any success) in dance if i did not have an instagram account. I thought I’d keep the account strictly for connecting with the dance world, but soon enough, the account became a portal for a world much bigger than strictly dance – the typical high school girl on instagram experience, which I will go into in this post. Throughout my high school years I also opened a TikTok and a Snapchat account. I eventually deleted those 2 platforms without much struggle, but instagram… I couldn’t get away from it. From opening my first account to deleting my account August 22nd of 2023 as a junior in college, it took me 10 years to finally be officially done with instagram. Let me tell you about it.
Firstly, why was I even on instagram, and why didn’t I just get off if it wasn’t adding many positives to my life? The answer that answers both of these questions is simply that everyone else was on it. If you aren’t active on instagram, you feel like you are missing out somehow. During my middle school and high school years I ESPECIALLy battled with FOMO (fear of missing out). I wanted to be included and in the know of the latest “news” (not real news… school drama news). Once I was on it, I felt completely hooked. It was a part of my daily routine, and I had the compulsive urge to check instagram every time i was bored, sad, tired… anything. Once a habit is so ingrained in your daily life it’s really hard to break.
Before I get into all the fun negatives of being on instagram, I will first outline some positives I experienced! In consuming content, I came across some inspirational & informational stuff! I also enjoyed some laughs watching silly comedy videos. Posting myself images (and video clips) of my life gave me a feeling of excitement, and when receiving comments and likes I felt validated by and connected to my peers. All these positive feelings were fleeting: A temporary high, and a big crash.
A few minutes into consuming inspirational and informational content quickly turned into an overload of information that completely overwhelmed me. Five minutes of being excited by an old friend from high school commenting on my post were followed by 2 hours of feeling sad and alone in my room without knowing why. Sometimes I’d put my phone down after a few hours, go for a walk, and I'd realize: Wow, okay now I’m in the real world. All those messages and photos and profiles I spent hours looking through have nothing to do with my real life. I had several experiences like this before realizing that I was tired of feeling so wrapped up in this virtual world. I knew it was taking up my time, but it was also taking up my energy from being able to be fully present in my real life. I noticed I would feel anxious at the end of the days that I had compulsively checked my instagram feed. I realized, not a day would go by without me checking in. I realized I couldn't not care. That was alarming for me. I started to notice more that the type of content I was consuming was, for the most part, making me feel worse NOT making me feel smarter, more empowered, or more inspired.
When I’d see a post of a girl with her friends at the beach, I would instinctively compare myself. I wish I had as many friends as she had. I wish I were in that friend group. I wish my skin was as smooth as hers. I wish my clothes looked as cool as hers. I wish my body looked as good as hers. I wish I were as confident as she looks. I wish other people thought I was as interesting and cool as they thought she was. The funny thing is that I wasn’t jealous of HER, I was jealous of what it would mean to be HER: attention, validation, acceptance, admiration… Needless to say, my brain would find any way to compare myself and my life to that of those I saw appearing on my feed. It was easy to create stories in my head about how amazing these people’s lives were because all I had was one singular photo – the rest could be left up to my imagination. And I truly did believe these stories: that she MUST BE x,y,&z. My brain would immediately go to Charlotte, you are not good enough. Another disturbing thought I had was not only, Charlotte you’re not as good/cool as she is, BUT you could be if you just ___(fill in the blank)___. This is where I would be especially susceptible to lifestyle influencers promoting their workout, diet or any other regiment that apparently was a magic formula for having their life. I was so wrapped up into what these photos represented. I didn’t consider that this photo is just one moment of this person's life, at a specific angle, with specific lighting. I thought: I want to be THAT girl. I know this is a trend… to become “that” girl. Oh gosh… now I hate this trend…. Anyways, I was truly convinced that I wanted to be THAT girl.
Anyways, at some point I tried to limit the content I was consuming because i’m not stupid: I knew that the more time i spent on instagram the worse i felt about myself and the less productive I was at actually doing anything beneficial with my time. I wanted to be more mindful about what type of content I was consuming! But another thing that sucks about instagram is that there is no good way of filtering the type of content you want to consume even if you specially curate your following list. Unlike with a newspaper, on instagram you can’t just say: “Today I want to read solely about sports,” and then turn to the sports section and only read about sports. No, with instagram you may be following a creator that tends to post updates on sports, but one day I assure you they will drop a post with a life update about how they lost 50 pounds or got married. Well actually, the most likely option is that they create an instagram story with a kickstarter campaign for their friend in Georgia who cannot pay her rent… And if you don’t make a donation you're probably part of the overarching problem of systemic racism. THIS was something I really did not like about instagram. There was some political message in every corner! And it never felt like I was being pointed to interesting debates or articles. I would most often stumble upon a graph with three lines of text and lot’s of exclamation points insinuating that there was a fight going on between GOOD and EVIL, and I better get on the good side right now! Anywho… I didn’t love getting unsolicited political “information” from random people on instagram.
Not only was my experience as a content consumer kinda sucky… but also, I didn’t feel great about the experience as someone who was posting content. I would often post some fun pictures of my life, as people do, and then tell myself: “This is fun! I want to share fun pictures of my life with my friends!” But that was hardly ever the full story. The underlying messages I wouldn’t want to admit to myself were more like: “I hope my high school crush see’s this and thinks I’m cool and is finally interested in me!!!” In other words: “I want people to notice me and like me / think I'm fabulous.” Embarrassing, I know – but it’s the truth! I felt the urge to post a nice picture of myself so that I could show and prove to other people that I was worthy of interest. An even more disturbing reality is that I wanted to “improve myself” and become “that girl” in order to be able to post some picture of me embodying that “glowed up” version of myself and get admiration. Working on improving yourself is great, but the question ‘why do you want this’ is kind of the most important one. I wanted to have nicer outfits partially so I could post a picture of it and showcase it to all these followers online.
I wish I could report that I suddenly had all these realizations, and therefore realized instagram sucked, promptly deleted the app forever and moved on with my life and proceeded to not care about what any other people thought of me. Unfortunately, my story is much less inspiring than that. I knew I wanted to stop, but for some reason I couldn’t pull the plug. Additionally, I always thought the solution was to minimize and control the bad feelings, that I had to find the control within myself to just not compare myself to other people. Also, a part of me thought: “Once I’m confident in myself and have amazing things to post, I will never feel bad or compare myself when other people post ‘awesome’ things because I know mine will be better.”
In any case, I knew I wanted to decrease my usage, and I employed several strategies. Firstly, I added an app timer so that after 15 minutes in one day I’d be forced to close the app. Honestly this strategy was not effective because I ended up clicking “ignore” on the timer nearly every time it would pop up. I also deleted the app, which created an additional barrier to checking instagram. Everytime I wanted to scroll on the app, I’d have to redownload and re-sign in. This helped me have some distance from the app for a little bit, but it was still pretty tempting to just redownload it. I also blocked the instagram website on my computer to limit my usage and even temporarily deactivate my account. Another thing that did help somewhat was to mute people’s posts that I didn’t want to see on a regular basis and also just completely unfollow/unadd people. This way I was limiting content that made me feel… not great. Ultimately, I am SO HAPPY that I permanently deleted my account on August 22nd, 2023.
I do not use Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. I do use Youtube; however, and I wanted to quickly comment on this, as it is still a social media platform. I find youtube to be a social media platform that is a FUN creative outlet, and where I can watch intentionally made, longer formatted videos. I still am mindful about the time I spend watching videos and monitor what type of content I'm consuming. It’s easier to avoid comparisons since I’m not actively following any specific youtubers and don’t know a single person on it! On the creator's end, I LOVE preparing, creating, and editing videos. I hope that I can use my passion for health and wellbeing (& silliness) to create a positive impact on people. Another thing I love about youtube is that in longer formatted videos you see a slightly bigger glimpse into reality than a stand alone photo. When I record myself, I am forced to let loose a bit and not care what I look like because I can’t control every single angle and moment (also because I'm just not very good at it yet!).
After being off instagram for 9 months, I realize… I actually don’t need it. I can consume, create, and share content in a way that feels better for me. I have much more free time to DO things rather than scroll through instagram (which is not a very active DOING of anything). I am free to pursue personal improvements in my health and wellbeing without letting it be intertwined with the desire to share a photograph to impress friends, family, & acquaintances. In general, I am finding it easier to be guided by what's truly important to me instead of by what other people think is important. My life isn’t suddenly roses and daisies (still can’t avoid those existential questions that appear out of nowhere, like: what’s the meaning of my life?), BUT my life is a LOT better without Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. If you are using any social media platforms (so basically everyone) or if you have children using social media platforms, I very much encourage you to think deeply about how it’s affecting your/their life. Maybe it’s time for a change.
Check out my YouTube video on this topic!
Additionally, I highly recommend this podcast: JONATHAN HAIDT on Rich Roll podcast: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS REWIRING CHILDHOOD
https://www.richroll.com/podcast/jonathan-haidt-827/
Thanks for reading!!
Charlotte :)
